Week 6 – Day 5

Every day is an adventure walking in to the hospital. When we arrived this morning, there was a big crib in the middle of the room with all of Brendan’s stuff in it. All of the IV pumps and racks are gone. Brendan is looking good! The atrial line has come out, the pacemaker lines should be removed tomorrow! He still has his PICC line in his right leg for pushing medications and in case he needs more blood.
He was pretty calm today and handled handling very well. I held him for a couple of hours and it is a very nice thing to see so much of Brendan not covered in tape! They even were able to give him a better bath so he was much cleaner and smelled nicer.
The baby bed with the warmer has been removed and he is now in his big boy bed with room for his toys and they said we can bring in nicer blankets and maybe a mobile for him.
Bill and I both changed diapers today, we will have to start being a lot more hands on with him as he prepares to come home (still a long way out).
Since stopping the Clonidine, he has not had any more problems with the episodes of apnea and low heart rate. He is on 0.2L flow at 100% O2 in the cannula and that is working very well for him.
They have decided that they need to keep him calm and prevent overstimulation that causes him to get agitated. He really needs to relax, heal and grow. They have started closing his door and moved his assessments from every 2 hours to every 3 hours. He is now at his full feeding goal of 18cc of milk per hour. The change in Lasix has worked well. The focus is to put on weight now. Grow grow grow!!
It is all good news .. moving in the right direction!

Look how clean and uncluttered with equipment his room is now!

Tiny baby in his big boy bed!

All of Brendan’s little friends piled up where he can see them

Since it is December, the boys get to dress up in festive holiday outfits. My little reindeers!

Brendan does not look amused!

Reindeer Trevor!