I am happy to say that there is not that much to report today. Brendan’s respiratory therapist is happy with his progress on weaning from the ventilator. They are taking it really slow, but his blood gas tests are looking good.
He has been moved up to 4cc of breast milk via his feeding tube every 3hrs and he is tolerating it well. (4cc is a little less than a teaspoon!)

He is swaddled up tight and lying on his side.

Trevor is going to have a really busy day tomorrow, so for tonight he is just lounging.

This baby is always hungry. He currently gets about 26 times more milk per feeding than his brother. Brendan has some catching up to do!

I didn’t even realize it was a weekend until I tried to run in to Walmart. So busy!! The days melt in to each other and are flying by. Being in the hospital is like some kind of time warp. You walk in and next thing you know, 4 hrs have gone by. So much is happening and my brain struggles to absorb it all.

Brendan is still doing better. A perfect example of how it is impossible to keep track of what is going on – yesterday the doctor told me that they were going to wait 10 days post-op before they would begin feeding again (yesterday would be day 3). Today when I walked in, the nurse was pulling out his NG tube for his stomach drainage and she was replacing it was a new NG tube for feeding! This morning someone changed their minds again about his plan.
So the good news is, he has milk in his belly again. They are giving him 2cc every 3 hours to start and will be increasing it steadily as he tolerates it.
He still has quite a bit of fluid built up, but he is peeing really full diapers and that is just a matter of time before he can get rid of that.
They are continuing to decrease the Fentanyl and they have weaned back significantly on the ventilator. The most important part of it all is that he is taking steps in the right direction.

The old IV pumps are back. The new bank of pumps was a trial for equipment that the hospital is considering to purchase. The good news is that he is down to 7 pumps and only 5 different things being administered.

Brendan had lots of handling today and was pretty tired. The yellowish tube going in to his nose is his feeding line. He really, really did not enjoy them putting that in.

Trevor has a full belly and some clothes that actually fit, so he is looking cute as can be. Carters brand clothing shrinks significantly when washed. (Like 20% or more loss in size) That means that I can wash the newborn sized things down to a good fit.

All in all, a good day.

We had another good healing day today. Brendan is making progress bit by bit. He is down even more on the ventilator today. They are still weaning from the Fentanyl and hope to bring him off it slow enough that he does not have serious withdrawal symptoms. They would prefer to not have to use other drugs to wean him completely.
They should be removing the chest tube tonight as he is no longer draining any fluid. They have removed the dressings on the incision so that it can start to heal.
It is going to be another week before they think that he can start eating again, they want to give his gut more time to heal now that it is getting more adequate oxygen flow. His bank of IV pumps has gone down again and now he is just on IV nutrition, pain management and the Milrinone. He also gets a bit of a blood thinner to help keep his central lines clear.

The swelling has gone down even more, the Lasix is helping a lot. He is looking more like himself. The older the boys are getting, the more we see a resemblance between them as well.

He’ll be proud to show off the big chest scars later when it impresses his girlfriends

His guard dog beanie baby had an assistant for one night, a little husky dog beanie that was helping to position his legs. When we got to see him this morning, the husky apparently had been contaminated. Poor puppy.

Trevor is doing very well. He is going to have an echocardiogram on Monday just as a final checkup since he was a preemie. There are natural shunts present in fetal hearts that change the blood flow while the babies are developing and these things close on their own at birth. They are pretty much just checking to see if his have closed properly.
He also is going to get a home visit from his physical therapist Monday afternoon to see if he needs any more therapy work.

Trevor’s biggest worry is that Gramma squeezes him a lot!

Trevor is ready to go on the next motorcross ride!! I think Bill doesn’t have to worry about Trevor borrowing gear for a while.